As educators continue to conduct most of their teaching online, the questions about how to cultivate good discussions are adding up. Discussion is one of the key ways that teachers get students engaged in learning — but can you replicate the qualities of an effective face-to-face classroom discussion through a text window or video?
Educational Leadership magazine recently held an #ELMagChat Twitter chat about holding deeper discussions online—and our guests had a lot to say on the topic.
Many who chimed in have had to adapt their classroom
discussions to online learning and have found different techniques that helped.
Some have been able to lean on the classroom culture they
already developed to help with online chats:
https://twitter.com/DJE_29/status/1255223159260950531
Others have discovered that setting norms to allow students
to know what to expect in discussion forums has helped tremendously:
https://twitter.com/JoMabeeLein/status/1255222829575999489
But there are also challenges to not being physically
present for a discussion. Non-verbal cues are harder to spot online. And it’s
harder to “read” the students to see if they’re engaging or confused with the
content:
https://twitter.com/jenorr/status/1255222745765490688
https://twitter.com/bamameghan/status/1255223829116354563
Chat participants also had a lot of advice for what to avoid
when facilitating online discussions with students. While much of this advice could
apply to face-to-face discussions as well—make sure all students have a chance
to speak, try not to talk too much as the teacher, keep on task as much as
possible—these challenges seem magnified in an online setting.
Teachers mentioned that, when giving students a chance to
speak, it’s important that as many students get to talk as possible. This may mean teachers need to be careful not
to dominate the discussions themselves:
https://twitter.com/jenorr/status/1255227299378737152
https://twitter.com/Diane_DCconsult/status/1255227849994313729
Mike Anderson, who
wrote a feature article in EL’s April issue on Deeper Discussions,
was quick to point out that subtle language choices can make all the difference
in someone feeling included or excluded:
https://twitter.com/balancedteacher/status/1255226761429868548
Finally, some educators warned of being careful about
privacy and equity issues. As students are in many cases “tuning in” to school
from home, teachers need to respect students’ privacy and desires to not
participate:
https://twitter.com/NancyinLux1/status/1255228092932665346
https://twitter.com/Robyn_R_Jordan/status/1255226858473390080
Above all, educators stressed the need to be generous and
kind to each other and to their students, recognizing that teaching during a
crisis is by no means easy. As EL author Ann Vilen wrote:
https://twitter.com/ELEd_AnneVilen/status/1255232096353898503
Many other fabulous strategies for great online discussions can be found on Twitter at the hashtag #ELMagChat.
Join us for our next #ELMagChat on May 20,
2020, at 8:00 pm EST for a discussion about “Learning and the Brain,” the theme
of our May issue.
May 4, 2020
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